Posted on 10/18/2019 12:55:14 PM PDT by ransomnote
A father Googled ‘Nest + camera + hacked’ and found out that this happens frequently
It was an unremarkable Wednesday afternoon when our nanny texted my wife and me asking if we were speaking through one of the Nest cameras in our house. We both replied that we were not.
Then the nanny texted that a voice was coming through the kitchen camera and using bad words.
I immediately pulled up the video feed and began reviewing:
I hear the familiar chime, which means someone is about to talk through the camera. Then, to my horror, a female voice that I don’t recognize starts talking to my 18-month-old son. He looks around the room and then at the ceiling, wondering who’s there.
It feels as though my heart is about to beat through my chest. The blood rushes to my face. I am completely helpless.
The voice is laughing when it chimes in. She says we have a nice house and encourages the nanny to respond. She does not. The voice even jokes that she hopes we don’t change our password. I am sick to my stomach.
After about five minutes of verbal “joy riding,” the voice starts to get agitated at the nanny’s lack of response and then snaps, in a very threatening voice: “I’m coming for the baby if you don’t answer me, bitch!”
My jaw drops.
We unplug the cameras and change all passwords. The nanny has taken our son to the park down the street in an effort to escape. However, the damage has been done.
More at link
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
“See what the voice says after that.”
I was thinking something along the line of the little promissory speech given to the abductors by the father in “Taken”.
Regarding reply #20.
If you doubt any of this, spend some time reading Orwell’s classic 1984 and pay particular attention to the passages about Telescreens.
The Ring camera, a front door doorbell/camera combo, which Google is promoting to police departments, is another awful idea.
https://shop.ring.com/pages/security-cameras
Even with a very complex PWD rotated every month, connecting you home security to the internet is asking for trouble.
All cameras and speakers/microphones have back door exploits.
All of them.
I have a bunch of cameras hooked to the “internet” so that we can see what is going on around the house when we are gone. I also have one that lets us see what the dog is up to when we are gone. They supplement our burglar alarm. If it goes off and alerts us on our cell phones we can instantly take a look around and see if there really is something going on.
Our house has been burglarized and we have had problems with drug dealers parking in front of our driveway and doing business. Strange thing... criminals do not like video cameras pointed at them especially when you can use their built in speakers to tell them that you are watching them.
It is unlikely that anyone is going to waste much time watching our yard and driveway, even if they can figure out a way, the real criminals around here are not that sophisticated.
I always have to laugh at people living in secure places with almost no threats to their security constantly making idiotic statements about people who live in areas that are not as safe who are using inexpensive technology to secure their homes. Idiot tech savvy kids hacking into your video camera are not real security threats when compared to thugs with knives and guns robbing your house and selling drugs in your neighborhood. If you do not understand what real security threats are then you should probably keep your smug trap shut.
I see things like this, and take heart for no cable tv, a dumb tv, and a laptop with no camera or microphone!
There is something to that, but the issue in the article and the problem the writer demands that Google solve isn’t that. The problem is the idiot (and he admits that) was using a compromised user/pass pair and that’s how the female took control. This article wasn’t about a vulnerability or exploit but about someone logging in as them.
Because he was too stupid to have changed his password.
I am Old School.
At my age it has become more important to be pro-active.
Why wait until your Identity has been stolen to install a security system?
Why wait until your pc has been hacked before you take steps to avoid it in the first place?
Why wait until your daughter gets pregnant or your son gets a girl pregnant to discuss the Facts Of Life?
Or discuss drugs?
Or teach your young children a family Safe Word so they don’t walk off with someone?
There a simply some things too valuable to put off until something horrible happens.
The ‘I should have,’ syndrome doesn’t bring back a dead child, undo a rape act, stop you from having take years of credit restoration, bring back a loved one from a drunk driving accident.
So many things. I guess I’d rather be the mom/wife that takes those steps than to be a mourning parent or widow or in that type of straits.
We just place different things on different levels of priority.
I am not sure she actually understands the amount of unauthorized listening Alexa does and how every day conversations can build up over time to build a complete profile if someone has a system that does that collection.
It is an on-going project between her and myself.
I’ve learned overtime with this sister that it’s better to drop bits of information than whole armloads of information.
There are times we have really in-depth conversations and I need to pay very close attention to the sound/pitch of her replies so she doesn’t stop listening or go into a really deep defensive stand.
“I am not sure she actually understands the amount of unauthorized listening Alexa does”
How much?
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